Tibet Etiquette - Presenting Khadas

Presenting Khadas - Tibet Etiquette

In general, tourists will get a Khada when they take off the flight or the train, which is representative of the best wishes to them. And you may have chances to get more during Tibet tour if Tibetan people want to show their respect to you.

Presenting Khadas (or Khatag), one of the most practised etiquette is to express honesty, loyalty and sincerity. Khadas are offered on the occasions of a wedding ceremony, baby-born, birthday, moving to a new house, festivals, funerals, visiting seniors, pilgrimages and farewells.

Khada usually is made of raw silk, and it woven loosely. Expensive Khada is woven in hidden mascot pattern, such as lotus Aquarius, canopy and conch shell. Though the quality of a Khada may different according to ones capability, people value the best wishes it represented much more. The length of a Khada varies from 6.6 meters to 1 meter. The most commonly used is 1.5 meters long. Tibetans believe that white color embodies purity and good luck so Khada generally is white.

A Khada represents different meanings on different occasions. On the occasion of festivals Tibetan presents Khadas to each other to celebrate a happy festival and life. Presenting Khadas means blessing the new married couples live happily together forever; to present khadas in greeting guests means sincerely and warmly welcome; to present khadas in sending one off means wishing a safe journey. In funeral ceremony, presenting khadas means mourning the died person and consoling the family members.

Generally speaking, people who present khada should hold it with both hands, and rise high as one's shoulder then stretch hands evenly, and bow to present it to the receiver. At this moment, khada is held as high as one's head, which means a respect and paramount blessings, wish all the best to receiver, in a polite gesture, accepts it with both hands holding evenly. When presenting khadas to the prestigious and the elders, one should hold khada higher than one's head, bow forward slightly and put the khada in front of their seats or under their feet. To present khadas to the peers or the juniors, one can tie khada to one's neck. It is quite common to send khadas in Tibet, even in correspondences, a small khada is to be enveloped inside as blessings and greetings. As for khada's origination, an argument is that ZhangQian, an envoy of Han Dynasty, sent pieces of silk to local tribes' leaders that Han people perceive silk as a gift of the embodiment of purified friendship when he passed by Tibet on the way to western areas. So Tibetan tribes considered that an etiquette to deliver friendship and good wishes, a grand etiquette from central China, the thriving nation. Hence, it has been in use till now. Another saying was that king Pagpa of Tibet, who reigned from 1235 A.D/ to 1280 A.D, originally named Lhodron Gyaltsan, was a Tibetan politician, a great Buddhism master and the fifth founder of Sakyapa Sect, who was also the first master of Buddha affairs of Yuan Dynasty, Pagpa brought a khada with the pattern of the Great Wall at either end and was inscribed with auspicious word. Later a religious explanation of khada's origin claimed that khada is the streamers of the diakinesis, its purified white color symbolizing holy, pure and supreme.